Elicitation and Grading of Subjective Attributes of 2-channel Phantom Images

The subjective attributes of 2-channel phantom images of transient piano, continuous trumpet and male speech sources were elicited using pair-wise comparison between reference mono images and their phantom images. The attributes elicited included ‘image focus’, ‘image width’, ‘image distance’, ‘brightness’, ‘hardness’ and ‘fullness’. The effect of interchannel time and intensity differences on the perceived difference between the real image and its phantom image was investigated for each sound source in respect of the elicited subjective attributes. Results show that the type of panning method (pure time, pure intensity and combination of the two) had a statistically significant effect on image focus and image width attributes. It was also found that the type of sound source had a significant effect on all the attributes.